Akihabara

Welcome to Our 'Hood: Akihabara

Akihabara Map #1
If you loved Akihabara, rent this movie! It's great! Akihabara Geeks	& Map #2

Akihabara .. "Electric City" .. that was my daytime action. I would walk into the winding rows of stalls on a Saturday morning, and not come out until dinner time. Until you see it, you can't imagine .. there are thousands of stores .. literally thousands .. all selling electronic goodies .. and, in 1959 .. cheaper than anywhere on Earth. (Quite a different story today, though .. you're better off at Best Buy.)

I became absolutely hooked on electronics here, mainly because everything was so cheap, and you could experiment with anything and everything until you got it right. The base Hobby Shop provided wiring diagrams .. and emergency help in case you blew a fuse for your entire street. But, most of the ideas .. and the parts needed .. came right from Popular Mechanics, and then I'd go out shopping. I built an amplifier for my turntable that cost $2.85 in parts. I wired up every room in our Wash Heights government housing quarters with speakers, including the bathroom, each with an on\off switch. They were all wired to a multiplex box connecting with the TV set or the radio or the record player .. your choice. All the speakers, a second amplifier I built, the switches, boxes, cabinets and the wiring cost me a grand total of $14.00.


Big electronics chains sit side-by-side with small mom and pop stores. They all do business because Akihabara is packed with customers all the time.

No matter what you want, there is some store there that carries it .. in 18 colors.


Land is at a premium .. so the big stores go straight up. The flashy stuff is on the ground floor, to attract customers. There are women outside the stores (in white gloves, natch!) demonstrating whatever is new.


The smaller shops are the most interesting. They specialize in one specific thing, like jacks or resistors, and they carry an endless variety of it.

Click on any photo outlined in red to see the larger version.


It is inconceivable that Akihabara does not have the exact model of the exact brand of the electronics product you are looking for. But .. here's what they might not tell you .. because of the voltage difference .. it probably won't work in the U.S. I gave away all of my electronic stuff before I left Japan.


Not content to just have six or seven stories of goods, some use unusual building design to attract customers.	Even the most narrow street in Akihabara is full of shops.

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Not one square meter of outside building space is wasted: signs, signs, signs!	The best time to visit is on a weekday, when the locals are working.


It's not only stereos and computers for sale here .. anything that uses electricity.	The main street is extremely wide, but the taxis still manage to almost hit you.

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There is no place like this anywhere in the U.S. or, for that matter, in the world!	You can walk through the side streets for two hours, and still not see it all.


Sunday in Akihabara. The main streets are closed to traffic. Shop 'til you drop.	On Sunday, only the side streets are open. Cafes bring tables out on the street.

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These stores will have the latest technology, like the car-satellite positioning system, years before it reaches the States.	The view from the train station. Just ahead and below is the skateboard park for kids (better there than in Tokyo traffic).

This pic is HUGE! It's as tall as the one below is wide. You get a real feeling of the claustrophobia you can experience walking through here.

Click on any photo outlined in red to see the larger version.


This is a wide-angle view of just as you exit the train station. To the right, behind the trucks is the skateboard park, and straight ahead is all the action. This picture is enormously wide, but it's a great viewpoint of the area.

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